


A Temporary Forever

by Alexdoesthings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amnesiac Derek, Derek-centric, M/M, Misunderstandings, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory helps us defines our friends, our lovers, and ourselves. But with his memories missing, Derek must rely on his senses to guide him. Especially when Stiles refuses to tell him what they were to each other, why he left things around Derek's apartment, or what's different now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one of those stories that's been sitting around on my writing drive gathering dust so I thought it was about time to post it.  
> The liberal use of the horizontal line is almost appalling in an oddly satisfying way... Have fun!

The nightmares wake him finally, mercifully from his restless sleep. Derek couldn’t say what they were about. They’re full of blood and pain and they leave him with a feeling of helplessness clenching painfully at his heart. He throws his covers aside and his feet barely hit the cold floor before he’s moving away from the smell of his own distress soaked into the sheets.

Derek just wants something familiar. The apartment smells like him but it’s all wrong and he needs something else. His senses cast out desperately and he finds a scent that isn’t his, is recent, and doesn’t fill him with dread or misery. He grabs the fabric it clings to and finds that it’s a jacket. It’s a couple of sizes too small to be his and the scent that clings to it is so vividly fresh it could only have been away from its owner a few days. The scent draws an image of someone young, male, and human, but it feels like trust, like safety. He needs that right now. He falls heavily onto the couch and presses it close to his chest, his head ducked low. He breathes it in deep so it casts out every other smell.

After two breathes he’s calmed down enough not to feel like he wants to claw his own skin off. He starts to release his death grip on it and lets out a shaky breath. His whole body is trembling and not from cold. He feels almost feverish in the wake of everything and exhaustion washes over him. He lets his body fall onto the couch and wakes later with the jacket thrown over his shoulder, having slept much better.

 

* * *

 

Having soaked in the scent in his sleep, Derek now recognizes it all over the apartment. It’s one of the few scents that is most prominent besides Derek’s own, so whoever it belongs to spends a lot of time here, more than Scott. Now he’s looking for it, Derek finds several books that he’s sure belong to the jacket’s owner and a couple of pens with light teeth marks on them. This person must be important to him for him to be such a part of Derek’s life and he’s obviously comfortable enough here to leave his stuff lying around. He tries not to jump to conclusions yet, it’s not a drawer and pillow after all, but it’s telling enough, especially since no one else whose scent is recent leaves things around his apartment. He doesn’t really know what else to make of it and is again hit with how frustrating it is having all the clues but none of the answer.

 

* * *

 

Derek doesn’t have to wonder long. He’s pacing aimlessly around the large space in front of the coffee table when Scott texts him a simple “We’re coming up.” Derek stops to stare at the text, facing the exposed brick on the wall behind the couch, right shoulder to the door.

He doesn’t know what “we” Scott is referring to and he’s still looking at the word when he catches the scent, whips his head toward the door, and goes still. Two sets of shoes echo on their way up and Scott appears in the open doorway flanked by another guy about his age. Derek stares over at the newcomer, matching the scent to a face. It nags at the back of his mind but he can’t place it otherwise.

“Derek,” Scott says his name like he isn’t sure before introducing his friend with a vague wave of his hand, “this is Stiles.”

Stiles jerks his chin upward lazily at Derek in greeting, his sharp eyes studying him. Derek returns it with a numb nod of his own and shifts his feet automatically so he’s facing them as he puts his phone back into his pocket. He crosses his arms, not paying attention to anything but the vague familiarity about Stiles. Scott feels familiar to him but he assumes that’s probably because he’s Beacon Hill’s alpha and Derek lives in his territory. No matter the relationship between them or memory damage he’s sustained, that’s not something Derek would be able to forget. Stiles is a different matter though.

“I hear humpty dumpty cracked his head,” Stiles says easily, most of his attention focused on cataloguing Derek, “I guess that makes me all the king’s men.”

Stiles flashes Scott a little smirk at that and Scott rolls his eyes with a light chuckle as he passes the threshold. Stiles walks in on Scott’s heels with the ease of being somewhere he’s well acquainted with and comfortable. He doesn’t so much walk down the steps as fall purposefully from one to the next. Derek is transfixed by Stiles’s movements, so full of energy barely contained under the surface. He walks beside Scott with the ease and synchronicity of two people who are equals and know each other well. Stiles doesn’t take his eyes off Derek and it makes him itch in a way he can’t scratch. It throws Derek off a little and he feels his guard go up but he isn’t sure whether to be offensive or defensive.

“No wonder they fail to put humpty dumpty back together,” Derek comments derisively, his mouth deciding offensive for him.

“Definitely still Derek,” Stiles says somewhere between amused and exasperated.

 

* * *

 

They work steadily through questions about Derek’s life, trying to see what he remembers. Derek knows broken bits of everything, but not a complete picture of anything. The farther back they go, the easier it is to remember. He knows the present state of his family and the whereabouts of each of the living members, at least that they’re all aware of. Scott and Stiles visibly relax when they find out they don’t need to explain any of this to him.

Though there’s an impressive amount that he does remember, according to Stiles, he still can’t recall many important recent developments like the events leading up to his memory loss, how he and Scott came to be in whatever bond it is they seemed to have formed, or what Stiles is to him and why he is around so much his scent is a part of Derek’s life that he finds comfort in.

Stiles insists that Scott not explain either of their relationships to him, saying something about the vague familiarity being a good sign, something to encourage without interference.

 

* * *

 

One week later, Scott had stopped by only once more to check on him and try to help spark some of Derek’s lost memories. Scott’s distracted when he does, pacing around with his brow wrinkled, and keeps touching his phone until he gets a series of texts. Whatever they says both puts a relieved, love struck grin on his face and tenses his shoulders. Derek can’t imagine what it’s about and Scott leaves not long after only saying that he’s sorry and he has to check on something.

Stiles, on the other hand arrives every day, sometimes twice a day, with a new memory exercise or an idea from out of left field. He stays for several hours, walking Derek through them to no effect, and then is forced to give up for the day. He usually has what looks like an intense text conversation at least twice during these visits. When Derek asks what's going on he just relies, "It's from Scott," and changes the subject. Derek likes having him around though if for no other purpose than to fill the space with life since Scott advised him to stay put for now.

He also likes having Stiles renew his scent in the apartment. He likes Stiles’s sarcasm and quick wit. He likes when his hand brushes him accidently when they’re in close proximity. He likes the sound of Stiles’s voice and the feeling of Stiles’s warmth beside him. Sometimes, he even likes that Stiles doesn’t pull his punches when he speaks and keeps Derek on his toes.

He tries not to see a pattern in that.

He wishes Stiles would tell him more about what they were to each other before he’d lost his memory, but Stiles deftly dodges questions of that nature. He’s careful around Derek, never missing an opportunity to let whatever playful jibe comes to mind slide past his lips, but he doesn’t give him anything serious or solid without talking around it and his body language is just as ambiguously closed off. Derek isn’t sure what’s that’s about.

Derek finds, the longer he spends with Stiles, the closer he wants to be and the more he wants to know. Sometimes Stiles catches Derek’s steady gaze watching him or Derek’s fingers lingering too long and looks away quickly, changing the topic to whatever floats across his mind with an almost desperate air as he shifts away from Derek.

He knows he’s not exactly the same as before, Stiles has told him as much, both in blatant remarks and nonverbal signals. Some days it feels like a good thing and Stiles is surprised at first but more open after. Other days though, he closes up and there’s a layer of sadness around him Derek can’t figure out how to make him shake.


	2. Interlude: School Cafeteria

“He’s different somehow,” Stiles tells Scott, pondering over his interactions with Derek, worrying the cafeteria juice box straw between his teeth.

“Who is,” Scott asks absently, tapping his pencil against his forehead as he looks over his math homework.

“Derek,” Stiles answers before glancing down at Scott’s paper and asking, “You know that’s due in an hour, right, dude?”

Scott gives a wordless affirmative, still not looking up from his unfinished homework. “Kira wanted to hang out so I didn’t get it done,” he explained a little too quickly, “And I know I should have remembered, but with everything that’s been happening…”

Stiles nods understandingly as Scott trails off with a shrug. He can’t begrudge his friend some calm domestic bliss with all the crazy supernatural shenanigans they’ve been getting themselves into. He deliberates for a second, watching Scott struggle with the problem he’s on before he sighs, pulls the worn out straw from his mouth, and replaces it in his drink. He tugs his own homework out from between the pages of his textbook and pushes it across the table to Scott.

Scott startles at the sight of it and glances up at Stiles as he says, “I can’t copy you.”

Stiles shrugs as he points out, “You’re doing that problem right anyway. And it’s not a big deal dude, just write your own answer to the word problem.”

Scott smiles gratefully at him. He places the two sheets next to each other and goes back to filling in the answers. Stiles’s attention, never held long, drifts back to their latest supernatural problem, or not so supernatural problem, of Derek’s memory loss.

His train of thought picks up right where he’d left off as he says, “I can't figure it out. It’s like he found his zen or something.”

“Derek,” Scott asks, giving him a quizzical look over his pencil like even the idea is foreign, “Isn’t that a good thing though?”

“Yeah,” Stiles concedes grudgingly, his thoughts still traveling over the less guarded expression Derek wears when he’s around now, “It’s just unnerving. He’s Derek Hale without all the,” Stiles gestures ineffectually with his arms trying to find a word for what Derek was before settling on, “Derek Hale.”


	3. Chapter 3

Derek doesn’t remember what he said, but Stiles is looking at him like he did something right for a change. There’s no question in his gaze, no hesitancy, nothing delicate about the way he’s looking at him, like he might break him if he says the wrong thing. His face is bright and amused and Derek wants him to never stop looking like that.

It makes his chest light and his world softens and focuses to a fine point so Stiles is all there is. Every one of his senses is alight with awareness of his presence and Derek finds himself needing to be closer to that smile, that heartbeat, that scent. He reaches out because his fingers itch to touch and Derek is loath to deny himself that after weeks of uncertainty and holding back.

His fingers slide against Stiles’s cheek, feeling the contours of his face, as he steps closer. Stiles freezes like a paused video, all motion ceasing. His lips are slightly parted as the smile drops slowly from his face. Derek lets his momentum carry him, his hand sliding around to the back of Stiles neck while the other slips around his waist.

Stiles’s breathing stops until Derek’s eyes close as he slots their mouths together and feels Stiles’s shocked breath . The sensitive skin on his lips lights up with sensation that fills his head with a buzzing of contentment and desire. It feels warm and right and he doesn’t know how he could have forgotten this but he doesn’t care.

There’s two distinct slow beats of Stiles’s heart before it starts pounding in his chest. His body starts moving again in a flurry of almost panicked motion. His head turning away to disengage their mouths and his hands fly up to shove between them and get some space.

“Oh my god,” Stiles exclaims, his voice a little higher than usual, “What the hell are you doing?”

Derek frowns at him as he returns his hands to his sides, not sure what he did wrong. Stiles is breathing erratically, his pupils wide, his heart fast, and he smells like want and guilt and confusion. Stiles turns away from him, his face red and his eyes darting.

“You have a problem with this,” Derek asks, trying to understand Stiles’s mixed signals.

Stiles laughs thinly, “No, but you will.”

Derek is nonplussed. The evidence so far points to them being something and if this isn’t part of them then he isn’t sure what he was doing before he lost his memory or if he ever wants to go back to it.

“Why did you even do that,” Stiles asks, his voice sharp and shaky. The back of his hand is pressed to his mouth and he still isn’t looking at Derek, like he can’t.

“That isn’t normal,” Derek asks even though it comes out as more of a statement because the answer is written all over Stiles’s face.

“Only in my wildest dreams,” he answers unevenly with a shake of his head like he’s trying to shoo away a fly.

There’s hurt somewhere among the other emotions Stiles is emitting and it makes Derek irrationally angry. He grabs Stiles’s wrists and uses his locked elbows to pull him in and kiss him again. It’s harder than he means it and he’s holding tighter than he should. Stiles struggles weakly for a second but Derek can almost feel him caving, his resolve crumbling helplessly. And then he’s kissing Derek back like it’s the only time he’ll ever get to do so. In his mind, it probably is.

Derek gentles his hold on Stiles and, for a moment, it’s just them in the world and it doesn’t matter that Derek isn’t getting even the vaguest hint that they’ve ever been this. Then he feels Stiles still, the heart gone from him and the taste of remorse bites at his tongue. Derek pulls back slowly to see Stiles’s eyes are barely open and his lips are still parted. He looks somewhere between defeated and wrecked. He slumps slowly and Derek moves his hands to Stiles’s shoulders lest he fall to the ground.

“I’m sorry, Derek,” Stiles says so quietly that anyone but a werewolf wouldn’t have heard the words, “I’m so sorry.”

Derek’s frustrated all over again because Stiles’s sadness is deep and full of loss and longing and Derek did that to him and he doesn’t even understand how.

“Why are you apologizing,” he asks, some of his frustration leaking into the words as he ducks his head, trying to catch Stiles’s glazed, downcast eyes.

“Because you don’t want this and it’s my fault you think you do,” Stiles mutters, a tang of bitterness to the words that’s overtaken by the resignation in them.

Derek shakes him gently by his shoulders but it isn’t enough to get Stiles to look at him. Derek’s eyes are blazing. The desperate need to get Stiles to stop looking like that is burning a hole in his chest.

“What kind of person am I that I don’t love you,” he asks, sharp and low, needing to know what kind of a fool wouldn’t want the wonderful gift of a person before him. He’s more furious than he’s been in a long time and the shift is pulling at his control. He’s not worried about it though because he has Stiles here and he won’t hurt Stiles, never Stiles.

Stiles starts and stares at him, wide eyed and shocked. Derek stares back, hard and certain and needing to get this across to Stiles. Stiles’s mouth opens a little but no words come out for a long moment.

Then a shaky laugh escapes Stiles’s throat and the sound catches Derek off guard. It doesn’t stop, growing feverish and nearly mad. “Love me? You barely tolerate me,” Stiles chokes around his manic laughter.

There are too many emotions clouding the air around Stiles and his laugh starts to become more broken. Derek pulls Stiles to his chest, envelops him in his arms, and holds him close because it’s all he wants. Stiles fists his hands in the front of Derek’s shirt, like he’s going to push him away, but he’s also leaning into Derek like he can’t hold himself up. Stiles is shaking against him and all Derek wants is to make this better but he doesn’t know how. Suddenly his laugh stops being a laugh and goes silent altogether. It’s the strained silence of carefully concealed sobs, an art Derek knows takes years to prefect, and it hurts more.

“Forget him,” Derek finds himself saying, holding Stiles closer, “he doesn’t deserve you.”

He feels Stiles shaking his head slightly and a derisive tone coats the words as he says, “Derek, he is you.”

“Not anymore,” he points out softly, wanting to see Stiles smile again more than anything. He knows the words don’t really make sense, but in his mind everything is transparently clear. He’s not the same Derek who would reject Stiles so thoroughly and make someone so strong feel so uncontrollably miserable.

“And what about in a week or a month from now when you get your memories back,” Stiles demands as he pushes away from Derek, spurred on by some stroke of anger. Derek lets him go under Stiles’s angry look as he shifts his body away from him, almost repulsed. Stiles’s eyes are tinted softly by a red rim and the tears he’d been holding onto so hard are still shining in his eyes.

“I’ll still want you,” Derek practically shouts back at him, trying to keep calm but failing miserably in his desperation.

Stiles eyes are vulnerable but his expression is hard and stoic and breaking Derek’s heart as Stiles says firmly around the crack in his voice, “You don’t even know me.”

Before Derek can recover his wits enough to reply, Stiles is gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Derek doesn’t remember what he was doing. He’d come to this spot for something, he was sure of it, but what he’d come for was a mystery. He stares numbly at the desk piled with papers, not seeing any of them, trying to think. This wasn’t the first time it had happened to him today, not even the tenth. It had been happening more frequently since Stiles had departed more than a week ago.

He grimaces as he thinks about it and suddenly he isn’t sure how long ago that was. It could have been years or hours for all he knows in that moment. The only clear thing in his head is Stiles’s face and the shape of the words on his lips as he left. Stiles had become such a part of his world that Derek feels empty and wrong without him there. He still didn’t have the faintest idea what they had been like before all this, but he hates it and hates himself.

He leans tiredly against the desk and closes his eyes. His mother’s face appears in the darkness and his heart aches with that old sorrow. He wishes he could talk to her again and be reassured by her strong, sure, loving presence. He misses her and Laura and everyone anew.

His losses compounding around him like bricks trying to box him in, Derek feels suffocated. He moves away from the desk and strides across the room to get away. Halfway, he realizes he has nowhere to go and stops. He stares at the floor a few feet in front of him, his thoughts a formless miasma and his heart a tangled bleeding thing.

He shakes his head to try and clear it, though it does little to help. His feet turn him around again and he starts walking back to the desk with a vague idea about getting lost in a book. He’s sure he set it down there not too long ago.

When he gets to the desk though, he forgets what he’s looking for again and glares glumly at the papers once more.

* * *

"Derek,” Stiles shouts as he bursts into the cavernous space before the wall of windows. Sweat is beading on his forehead and he's breathing hard, having run all the way there. His feverish gaze sweeps the room and he locks eyes with a surprised Derek. Stiles doesn’t even bother with the stairs in his haste, throwing himself off the landing and catching himself clumsily on the floor as he runs straight to Derek.

“Don’t you dare let that thing kill you,” Stiles says vehemently.

Then he grabs the front of Derek's shirt and is kissing him with an infectious, reckless abandon. Derek doesn't even take two seconds to adjust to the situation, leaving all his questions for later and reveling in the moment like it’s his last. He wraps Stiles in his arms and pulls him flush to his body as he returns the kiss in earnest. There's a groan in the back of Stiles's throat as he does it and it makes Derek hungry for more.

It turns to heated, open mouths and demanding hands pulling hard at skin and fabric to eliminate space. Then something slides from Stiles's tongue onto Derek's and he swallows reflexively. Stiles pulls back, breathing hard and uneven. His eyes are still dazedly lit with a passionate fire but they're also determined and apologetic. Derek gives him a questioning look but in the next second his body is burning. He cries out and drops to one knee, only barely managing to catch himself.

He hardly notices Stiles next to him, a hand on his shoulder and words flying from his mouth that Derek can't make out over the pain raging inside him. Every nerve in his body feels like it's trying to force itself to turn inside out. He might be screaming, he isn't sure, but he can't breathe, like he feels like he's drowning. Then he's suddenly gone from his apartment and painfully familiar images superimpose themselves on his world.

_He’s lost in the water closing over his head and he can’t move his limbs. He’s used the last of his air screaming Stiles’s name and he won’t last long immobile. He drifts down and hits the bottom, helpless, and he knows he’s dead. Then, as it’s all fading, there are arms around him and his head breaks the surface. It’s like being reborn again to fill his lungs with air and Stiles is there holding onto him. There’s an anger and fear surrounding Stiles, but he doesn’t let Derek go even though Derek can hear him counting the time in his head until the strength leaks out of him trying to keep both their heads above water. It’s not because he has to save Derek, he could leave him at the bottom of the pool and save himself, it would make more sense, but he doesn’t. Derek isn’t sure what to make of that._

_Then there’s water again, but he’s drowning in a different way this time. He’s on his knees, soaked to the bone and his whole world has been rent apart. Boyd is lying there, completely motionless. He’s desperate to fix it but there’s nothing he can do because it’s his hands covered in blood. Cora comes into view and he reaches for his sister but she turns her back on him and he can feel the blame and misery coming off her and it’s his fault. He can’t touch her with those hands that got someone else she loves killed. He has no right to that. The only thing keeping him from shattering into a thousand pieces is the hand on his shoulder, tentative at first but firm when he doesn’t resist. There’s no blame there, even though there should be. No matter what he’s done here, Stiles doesn’t blame him._

_Then someone is calling his name in desperation and he's floating in nothingness. Everything still has the quality of dreams, but it's so real he can almost taste blood in his mouth. The voice is quiet and far away at first but there’s pain pulling him toward it. He feels the attack coming and grabs the offender’s wrist before they can strike. It doesn’t feel dangerous though, that skin feels familiar. Then suddenly he’s looking up at Stiles and the confined space of an elevator. Everything in his head is a jumble but he knows they’re the only two left. Stiles is shaking and he’s explaining things feverishly, helping him to sit up, but Derek is having a hard time focusing on much. He only knows that Stiles is trying to get him to safety again._

Derek doesn’t have a lot of context for them, but he knows they're memories and he can feel more of them creeping around the edges of the fog in his mind. But even with all the pain and blood and fear running through them, there’s only one thing that matters about those memories.

"Stiles," he gasps his name as he comes sharply back to the present. Everything is spinning a little and his skin is clammy and both too hot and too cold. Stiles is there supporting some of his weight with concerned eyes.

Derek reaches for him and tries to lever himself up as he asks, “What was-” but Stiles cuts him off as he warns him, “Don’t try to move yet.”

Derek understands why a second later as he doubles over as pain like a punch to the stomach rocks him. He coughs and tries to draw in air but it’s all evacuated the room. Stiles’s hands are grabbing at him and pulling him up to look at him. His sharp eyes dart between Derek’s unfocused ones as the pain becomes a throbbing. Derek can see his mouth moving but he loses the words around the needle like pain that lances through his head. He shuts his eyes tight and grits his teeth against the scream fighting through his throat.

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on Tumblr [here](http://alexdoesthings.tumblr.com/)


End file.
